


The Cruel Knife of a Dark Dream

by coslyons



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam is a badass magician, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Mild Gore, Mild Horror, Nightmares, The Third Sleeper wakes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-08 14:21:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5500532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coslyons/pseuds/coslyons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The third sleeper is awake and waging war against Cabeswater, creeping in around its boundaries and violating its strongholds. Strongholds which include Ronan’s mind.<br/>There has always been a vulnerability in dreaming, and Ronan is basically unprotected against the ancient and evil power of the third sleeper.<br/>Gansey, Adam, and Blue race against time to find a way to shore up Cabeswater before Ronan's body gives out on him and his dreams take him straight into the hands of the third sleeper.<br/>Because both Cabeswater and the third sleeper are preparing for war, and Ronan is the first battleground.</p><p>(basically, my Raven King theory minus the whole Gansey dying/finding Glendower plot line)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cruel Knife of a Dark Dream

**Author's Note:**

> Content warnings: blood, gore, unreality, wolves, drowning
> 
> These characters are not mine, but these nightmares are.
> 
> I'm on tumblr at [questionabledivinity](http://www.questionabledivinity.tumblr.com)
> 
> Also, I made a playlist that captures the feeling of the nightmares [here](http://8tracks.com/coslyons/the-cruel-knife-of-a-dark-dream)

On a hill overlooking the sprawl of a lush green forest, a woman stands silhouetted by the last rays of the sun as it sinks below the horizon. A breeze wafts through the air, carrying the scent of the pine trees with it. 

It was time.

The woman that was once Piper Greenmantle turned, and walked back into the cave.

Once inside the cave, the woman’s head twisted from side to side. Black smoke spilled from the her mouth as it opened improbably wide.The smoke collected in a stack on the floor instead of dispersing, forming feet, then legs, then a shadowy torso.

Finally, it was completely formed, its yellow eyes the only distinct feature in its smokey face. The empty shell of the woman’s body collapsed in front of it on the floor of the cave.

It regarded her body with a curious and detached gaze. How foolish of her not to consider the terms of the agreement before seeking its favor. It had healed her body, fixed the broken legs and the poisoned liver, but it had extinguished her mind. She was nothing more than an empty shell, a vessel to be used when convenient. Her body had just a small spark of magic, only enough to keep her bodily functions running when her body was not being possessed.

Being free once more was the ultimate relief. For so long, it had been bound to that revolting physical form, feeling each agonizing moment pass as if through a hazy fog. It had slept, yes, but its sleep was incomplete. That boy hadn’t done a good enough job with the ritual. 

It had passed centuries in the agonizing state between waking and sleeping, that dreadful twilight.

Tonight, however. Tonight it was finally free.

The third sleeper turned its gaze to Cabeswater, and took its first steps to reclaim what the forest had taken from it.

Reaching into the forest with one tendril of smoke, it sought out a weak point in Cabeswater’s defenses.

  
Miles away, a dreamer turned uneasily in his sleep.

* * *

 

The forest around him was oddly muted, like he was looking at the rich green of the trees through a gauzy grey curtain or milky glass. It gave him very nearly the same feeling he used to get before the night horrors attacked him. Nearly, but not exactly; there would be no night horrors here tonight. Still, Ronan kept a wary eye to the sky as he walked along the mossy forest floor.

His bare feet sank into the lush moss with each step he took. Everything smelled like wet growth and pine. In the background though, Ronan could smell the sour scent of decay. It was discomfiting, to say the least.

He kept walking. Ronan suddenly stepped on something hard, a stark contrast to the softness of the moss. Lifting his foot to see what it was, Ronan felt a little baffled by what he saw.

Beneath the sole of his foot was a coin. 

The coin glinted faintly in the pale and diffused light. It seemed very out of place in the forest. Puzzled, he bent down and picked it up.

Ronan held the weathered coin in his hand, its metallic face scarred and battered. The only marking it bore was that of an indistinct screaming face contorted in its captured suffering.

He turned it over and over again in his fingers, trying to find some meaning in it. Each revolution caused the face to come into greater and greater focus.

It was  _ his  _ face.

Startled, he dropped the coin. It bounced once, twice, along the forest floor, light playing across its surface. There seemed to be a faint humming coming from the coin. It was calling to Ronan, daring him to pick it back up.

Gingerly, Ronan held the coin between his index finger and thumb. The face on the coin was indistinct once more. With the logic of dreaming, Ronan knew he would not see his face again unless he spun the coin. The idea that could see his own agonized face was a terrifying and intriguing prospect.

The coin hummed in his hands once more, begging to be spun. Ronan turned it over in his fingertips. And again. And again.

Eventually, the face crystallized once more.

Only it wasn’t his face this time.

Declan’s face, contorted in pain, seemed to be imploring him to do something, but Ronan didn’t know what he was supposed to be doing. He just kept spinning the coin.

As he spun the coin faster and faster, it seemed to get an energy of its own. The coin, still spinning, lifted up out of his hand. Once airborne, the coin began to spin faster and faster until it was nothing more than a face on a blurry silver background. The face kept changing with each revolution it made.

Blue.

Matthew.

Gansey.

Adam.

Adam.

Adam.

Ronan cupped his hands around the coin where it still spun in midair. He needed to help Adam. 

The coin started leaking liquid rust from where Adam’s eyes should have been. It poured from the coin in pulsing rivulets, coating Ronan’s fingers and dripping from his cupped hands. The air around it started to smell of bitter iron.

Ronan couldn’t stop staring as the coin turned around and around. Adam’s face grew more and more pained with each revolution. The liquid rust—the blood—gushed even faster from the coin’s eyes. The tips of Ronan’s fingers turned black, with tarnish or bruising. Salt burned in the abrasions.

He felt himself falling towards the coin. Falling  _ into  _ it, if that was even possible. Ronan’s eyes grew heavier and heavier as he watched the light play over the surface of the coin. His lashes fluttered across the tops of his cheeks.

Just before he closed his eyes, a raven swooped in and tore the coin from his hands, leaving score marks from its talons across his palms. Hundreds of birds followed in its wake, buffeting him with their wings and carrying the coin further and further away from him.

They swirled around him in a dark tornado of flesh and feathers. Ronan felt himself get battered and bruised, black blood oozing from the palms of his hands.

The birds knocked him to the ground, and Ronan felt himself fading into darkness. At the edge of his vision, the coin bounced along the forest floor, a swarm of birds still circling around it.

*******

“Jesus, Ronan. What happened to your hands?”

Ronan glanced down to the gauze wrappings around his palms. A dark stain oozed through it from the gashes across his palms. The bleeding was only finally starting to stop.

At least it was blood colored now, instead of the sickly and oily black it had been earlier. 

“A certain dumbass raven scratched the shit out of them this morning.”

It wasn’t a lie. Ronan didn’t lie.

It just wasn’t the whole truth either. 

The wounds throbbed with every beat of his heart. Every movement he made caused them to twinge and sting.

He turned his palms face down on the table to avoid Gansey asking any more nosy questions about them. Adam watched him curiously, and with some suspicion. Ronan met his eyes with a glare that tried to make Adam back down, but Adam met his gaze steadily.

“Chainsaw did that to you?”

Adam sounded disbelieving.

“Birds are stupid, Parrish. Fuck if I know why it happened.”

Still no lies. Gansey seemed satisfied with Ronan’s answer, but Adam was still not convinced. His eyes seemed to tell Ronan that they’d be discussing it later.

It’d be hard to talk about something that Ronan himself still didn’t understand.

Soon enough, lunch was over. Gansey headed off to his next class, and Ronan and Adam continued walking towards their respective classes.

Just before Ronan took the turn that would have taken him to government, Adam stopped him with a hand on the arm.

Adam grabbed at Ronan’s hand, and inspected the bandaging on it.

“If you’ve bled through the gauze, that means it’s time to add more to it.”

Ronan resisted the urge to shove his hands in his pockets.

“I can help you if you’d like.”

“Yeah. Sure. Whatever.”

The tardy bell rang, clearing the bathroom of whoever was lurking there between classes. Adam checked the inside of one of the sinks to make sure it was dry, and then put his backpack in it. Digging in one of the outer pockets, Adam pulled out a rather substantial first aid kit, complete with gauze and bandages. He didn’t have to explain why he had it, and Ronan didn’t have to ask.

“Hands.”

Ronan held out his hands.

WIth careful and gentle touches, Adam unpeeled the gauze.

“I’m assuming you didn’t clean the wounds properly, so we’ll have to risk opening the cuts again to make sure that they’re mostly clean.”

“Okay.”

Adam pulled out a bottle of antiseptic wash, and gingerly peeled off the gauze that was plastered to Ronan’s skin. Only a few of the scratches started bleeding again. Holding Ronan’s hand over the other sink, Adam poured the antiseptic wash over the cuts.

“Fuck!”

The scratches burned. Adam completely ignored Ronan’s periodic swears as he placed a section of sanitary gauze directly over the cuts. His hands were steady as he used a wrap to secure the gauze in place on Ronan’s palm. Adam worked steadily until both of Ronan’s hands were cleaned and wrapped in fresh gauze, then he took a step back. Ronan hadn’t realized how close they’d drifted to each other until Adam had moved.

Adam glanced at his watch, “We should probably get to class now.” He crammed his first aid kit back into his bag before shouldering it and walking to the door. “Try not to get it wet.”

Just before Adam walked out, Ronan said quietly, half with the expectation that Adam couldn’t hear him, “Thanks, Adam.”

Adam paused at the door for a split second, mouth quirking at the corners, but then he was gone.

* * *

 

Night fell over Monmouth. Ronan dug into the bottom drawer of his desk to grab the bottle of single malt Irish whiskey he’d been saving for some special occasion. And really, there was no better time to enjoy a finely aged whiskey than when he was trying to get exceedingly drunk to avoid bringing back any part of his dreams.

Breaking the seal on the bottle, he managed to get it open despite his hands. Foregoing any glass, he took the first burning sip straight from the bottle. 

Ronan felt the warmth of it spread into his chest. The first few drinks of whiskey were always the hardest to get down. Eventually things stopped stinging, usually once he was sufficiently buzzed enough for everything to be a pleasant and hazy blur.

He wasn’t looking for pleasant tonight, though.

He was looking to get drunk enough that he could blur the line between dreams and reality. 

Ronan’s dreams hadn’t tried to kill him in a while, but apparently times were changing again for the worst. It was typical Lynch luck, unfortunately. The only thing he felt even a little bad about was breaking his promise to Gansey that he wouldn’t try to self-medicate with alcohol again. He couldn’t think of anything else to do though.

He drank a bit more of the whiskey. There was maybe a third missing. Ronan recapped the bottle. He wanted to be very, very drunk, but he didn’t want to fucking die. 

The thought might have been a comforting one at any other time if he could let it linger, but instead, he just let it flow straight out of his brain. It was getting hard to concentrate on things. It would probably be a nice thing to lay on his bed. There’s a reason why he wasn’t before, but it didn’t seem important now. It can’t have been that important if he didn’t remember it. He had really soft pillows. He should use them more. His feet felt really heavy. Looking down, he realized he still had his shoes on. He laughed at how stupid he was for climbing into bed without taking off his shoes. His eyes felt really heavy all of a sudden, so he closed them.

* * *

 

Ronan blinked, and he was in front of a clapboard house. It looked like a rendering by some inexperienced artist: multiple perspectives all mashed together, shadows that didn’t make sense, and lines that didn’t quite meet up with each other properly.

He approached the front door. Something was attached to the wall of the house, right beside the doorframe. In the way of dreams, Ronan instantly knew what it was.

It was a tape measure to see how many people had died in this place, each inch corresponding to another dead body. The black line crept up the length of the tape measure, filling the tape like liquid into a cup. 

Ronan walked through the front door.

There was so much death, so much gore in this house. It reeked of bitter copper and rotting meat. Ronan tried to just breathe through his mouth to stop himself from throwing up. Still, bile burned at the back of his throat.

The people still alive inside the house had blandly pleasant faces, seemingly unaware of the horrors surrounding them. He wanted to shake them, to make them see. But none of them even so much as glanced over at him as they ate a light picnic lunch on a pastel gingham blanket, blood seeping through the pale pink.

Ronan was either invisible to them, or they were ignoring him. Either way, the effect was the same: utter frustration.

A hissing sound filled the silent space. Ronan hadn’t realized just how quiet the world had been before that moment. The air seemed to grow thicker and thicker around him. A thin sheen of water coated the floor at his feet.

The people were still oblivious.

It became apparent that the hissing sound was water. More and more water rushed into the room, causing the pooled blood to swirl in the water. The water rose to cover Ronan’s feet. It rushed into his shoes and weighed him down. He sloshed over to the people to try one last time to get their attention.

There was enough water now that their picnic basket started to float away. Still, they laughed vapidly and blankly at one another. It was like they were on the other side of thick glass.

Bodies laying on the floor around Ronan became weightless as the water kept rushing in. It was getting harder to walk now, with the water pulling at him from the knees down. The water was foggy with gore. 

Ronan made his way to the door, only to find that it was barred shut. He kicked at it a few times to see if he could get it to open that way, but it was as if the door had been turned into stone. Ronan turned and began to make his way to the window on the opposite side of the room.

The water was up to his hips now. The bodies bumped against him under the surface of the water, too insistently to be merely coincidence. Ronan clenched his teeth and waded to the other side of the room as best he could.

Some sort of current was pulling at his feet, trying to make him lose his footing. Ronan needed to stay on his feet, otherwise he had no chance of making it.

He blinked, and then he was in front of the window. Outside the window, a forest was growing towards the house with the force of a landslide. Vines chased in front of the trees, and began twining in front of the house.

They grew over the front porch, warping the wooden boards as they went. They scratched at the glass, but then went around it, avoiding the window entirely.

The water was up to Ronan’s chest now. Droplets of water splashed at his face as the turbulent water rushed.

He looked for a way to open the window. As he watched, the latches faded into the window sash. Ronan pounded at the panes of glass in frustration, and felt them rattle. The water brushed at the base of his throat as he hit the glass again and again, trying to break it. It seemed to be tensing against him each time he hit at it. 

On the other side of the glass, the wall of trees had reached the house. The front porch no longer existed. All that stood there now were trees. The trees nearest the window started swaying, even though Ronan knew there was no wind.

The clubbed ends of their branches swung slowly at first, then faster as they picked up momentum. Each swing brought it closer and closer to the window, and Ronan figured that it was trying to help him escape. He raised his chin out of the water to try and keep breathing, and renewed his efforts to break through the glass.

The tip of the branch just started brushing the other side of the window as the water got even closer to closing over his head.

As the branch made its first solid contact, Ronan took one last deep breath and shut his eyes. He tried opening them in the water to see what was going on, but the burning and the murky red ensured he shut them quickly once again.

Ronan felt water rush past him and towards the window, slowly at first, but then faster. He felt widening cracks in it when he ran his fingertips over the surface.

Finally, just as Ronan’s lungs were starting to burn, the water started to rush out of the window, sweeping him along with it. The branches of the trees brushed his skin softly with their branches. They seemed to be checking him for any signs of harm.

As more and more branches collected around him, Ronan let himself take a deep breath, and he closed his eyes.

****   
Ronan woke up with his bedsheets and clothes plastered to his skin. They were stained with swirls of red. He smelled like death. 

In the corner, Chainsaw started screeching loudly in distress.  _ Kerah! _

“Shut up!”

Ronan jumped out of bed, legs still a little unsure, and began stripping the bed of its ruined sheets before Gansey could notice. His head throbbed from the after effects of last night’s alcohol.

If Gansey was awake, there was a good chance he’d come to check on Ronan soon. If Gansey was asleep for once, there was a good chance he’d have slept through all the commotion.

When five minutes passed without Gansey popping in, Ronan breathed a sigh of relief. Gansey was asleep. He figured he had (after glancing at his improbably swirled alarm clock) about two hours to worry about covering things up.

His sheets were completely trashed. They were soaked in blood, and they reeked of rot and copper. Ronan gathered them all up, crammed them into a garbage bag. He’d dump them in the dumpster of the restaurant down the street when he got all cleaned up. 

Taking the garbage bag with him, Ronan went to the bathroom and took off his wet and bloody clothes before cramming them into the bag with the sheets. He took a short moment to regret the loss of his most comfortable pair of shoes before sealing off the bag and starting the shower. His skin felt sticky and gritty, and he itched to be clean.

Once the water had warmed enough to no longer be icy, Ronan jumped in and began scrubbing at his skin. Blood swirled down the drain. He scrubbed until his skin felt raw, but he couldn’t shake the lingering feeling of being unclean. It felt like his skin was permanently stained. He turned the water up hotter, and steam billowed out the top of the shower. His skin stung and started to go numb, but Ronan welcomed it. It meant that he no longer felt dirty.

The water started to go cold again by the time Ronan was ready to get out of the shower. His skin was flushed pink with the scrubbing and the heat. He no longer felt the urge to scratch at his skin until he bled. The towel he dried himself down with chafed at his skin, but it didn’t really matter all that much.

Towel around his waist, he went back to his room, taking the garbage bag with him. Ronan dressed quickly, eager to be rid of the bag before Gansey had a chance to ask him about it. He’d stayed in the shower longer than he’d planned for. Completely dressed in his school uniform, he hauled the bag down the street to the restaurant dumpster.

He’d managed it just in the nick of time, too. A half-awake Gansey shambled from the bathroom/laundry room/kitchen clutching a coffee mug like a lifeline, squinting suspiciously at the world around him. Gansey caught sight of Ronan walking in the front door, and turned the suspicious gaze on Ronan. 

Ronan avoided making eye contact, and went back to his room to wait until Gansey was ready to leave for school. 

* * *

 

Ronan typed in the search bar.  _ how can i control my dreams _

Based on the search results, it seemed most people figured that lucid dreaming was the solution to controlling dreams. That wasn’t exactly what he was looking for, but he’d give it a shot.

The first link he clicked was a complete bust. The article mainly talked about how to dream so that you could find things, or go places, or see things that defied reality. Completely useless to someone like him.

All the rest of the links he tried were similarly useless. He tried different iterations of the same basic question over and over again.

_ how can i control my nightmares _

_ how can i stop almost dying in my dreams _

_ how can i stop my dreams from trying to kill me _

Finally, Ronan found a forum post on a super sketchy website that seemed to at least offer something useful. One of the commenters on the post recommended meditation, and, better yet, recommended a specific book to help with meditation in respect to dreaming. Ronan tried to read parts of the book online, but the only pages available were the stupid credits and publishing pages. 

Glancing around to make sure no one had snuck up on him, Ronan pulled up the catalog for all the libraries close to here. Completely not surprised, he found that neither the school library nor the local Henrietta library had the rather obscure and occult book. Ronan widened his search to libraries fifteen minutes away, thirty minutes away, an hour away.

Finally, he found a library an hour and a half away that had the book. Gathering up his keys and wallet, Ronan went to go get the book.

Midnight that night found Ronan sitting cross legged on his bed as he read the book on the bed in front of him. Unused to slouching over like this, his lower back was beginning to ache. Trying to ease the muscles, he laid back on the bed and perched the book on his chest so he could read it. In this new position, his back no longer hurt, but now he was having trouble keeping his eyes open. Unwilling to sleep, Ronan mentally shook himself awake, and refocused on the book.

Eventually, inevitably, the book fell to his chest as Ronan’s breathing evened out, and he fell asleep.

* * *

 

The rolling hills before him were devoid of color, with the branching skeletons of dead trees clumped into sporadic forests. Mist tendrils swirled along the ground like snakes. Blades of grass bowed under his bare feet as he walked onwards. The tall grass brushed at his chest and grabbed at his legs as he cautiously crept through the meadows in between the trees. 

The dark sky meant danger was lurking nearby. 

In one nearby tree, three ravens were outlined against the grey sky, their darkness making harsh lines and drawing in all the light. They made no noise and barely moved, but Ronan was aware that they were watching him intently the whole time he walked by them. They didn’t seem like they would hurt him, but they definitely were not his friends in this strange grayscale world.

Ronan heard rustling behind him. Whirling around quickly, he couldn’t see anything. He wasn’t convinced that he was still alone.

Turning around, he began walking faster. The rustling behind him started up again, but stopped when he stopped.

Heart pounding, Ronan looked around again, even though he knew it was futile. The rustling started up again, but always out of the corner of his eye. Breathing heavily, Ronan tried to clamp down on his rising panic. 

With one last frantic searching, Ronan dug his bare toes in the earth and  _ ran _ .

He was like a rabbit let loose, bolting like his life depended on it. There was no meaningful direction but  _ away _ . Ronan heard the grass rustle behind him even over the rushing of blood in his ears.

Daring a glance over his shoulder, Ronan tried not to let his speed flag as he finally caught sight of his pursuer.

A man chased after him with blank eyes and a smile that had too many teeth.

Ronan immediately knew that he could not let this man catch him at any cost, that some torment worse than death awaited him in the hands of whoever had sent the man after him. He immediately knew that the man was not human, despite the human face he wore.

No matter how fast Ronan tried to run, he could not seem to outrun the man pursuing him. It was as inevitable as watching a car crash in slow motion.

His feet were sliding through the grass, and he couldn't seem to find traction as he ran up a hill. Ronan’s fear made desperate tears prickle in the corners of his eyes.

Suddenly, he became aware of a building at the bottom of the hill. 

_ Safety. _

It was a church. Most importantly, it was St. Agnes Catholic Church. The shape was deformed and flattened, and it looked nothing like what it should have looked like, but Ronan knew that it was his church the same way he had known about everything else.

Ronan ran so fast down the hill that he felt like he was weightless. He hit the door full speed, slamming into it.

Ripping the door open, he threw himself into the dim nave, taking a moment to bar the door behind him. Not moments after he shut the door, something hit it from the other side hard enough to make it shake. 

It held though, for now. Ronan watched with growing apprehension as the door took blow after blow, raining splinters of wood at each hit.

A crack appeared in the middle of the door. Feeling his breathing growing unsteady, Ronan went to the front of the church. Pulling up the cloth, he sat underneath the altar. The flagstones of the church seemed to rattle with the barrage on the door.

Ronan heard one last resounding crack and, flinching, inhaled sharply and closed his eyes.

He couldn't hear anything. His heart thundered in his chest with a sick anticipation of his demise. Ronan decided that he didn't want to face his death with his eyes closed. 

Steeling himself with a deep breath, Ronan opened his eyes...

...and was met with the sight of his ceiling. Ronan exhaled a sigh of relief.

His hands were still clenched tightly into fists, shaking with how high strung he still felt.

It took what felt like hours for Ronan’s heart to calm down, but he couldn’t sleep any more. He just stared at his ceiling as the pale dawn light washed away the darkness of the night.

* * *

 

Nino’s was very busy, considering it was a school night. Both Aglionby boys and people from Henrietta packed into the booths. Sound bubbled beneath a layer of dull unawareness. It seemed like there were miles and miles between Ronan and the restaurant, or that he was behind a sheet of glass. His eyes ached, and he caught himself nodding off a couple of times. He had successfully managed to stay awake for three whole days now, since the last time his dream had attacked him. He wasn’t about to fall asleep now, at Nino’s of all places.

Gansey stopped midsentence to look at Ronan. “Are you okay, Ronan? You seem really tired lately.”

“Pot meet kettle.”

The dark circles under Gansey’s eyes were much less dark than Ronan’s, but they were still there. A marker of his perpetual insomnia.

Gansey gave Ronan a reproving look, but he didn’t bring up the topic further. Only Adam seemed to notice Ronan’s avoidance of the question.

Blue walked up. “Wow, Ronan. You look like shit.”

“Pot meet kettle.”

Blue bristled, and Ronan distantly felt a little bit bad about antagonizing her, if only for the reason that he was not at the top of his game. It was fun to go head to head with Blue, but only when he could match up with her. Only when he could read her well enough to know what was just short of too much.

Gansey, sensing the brewing fight, said sharply, “Enough. Ronan, behave yourself or go somewhere else.”

Ronan sank further down into the seat, leaning his head against the back of it. This made it easier for him to keep his eyes open if he didn’t have to open them so far.

“Can you give me a ride back to my apartment, Ronan?”

Ronan roused himself enough to see who had posed the question. Adam. “Yeah, sure.”

“Are you ready to go then?”

Gansey was already standing up, walking over to Blue. Ronan felt like his thoughts were wading through molasses.

“Yeah.”

Ronan was only vaguely aware of walking out to the BMW. The journey was reduced to only sensations: the seat squeaking, the metal of the door handle, the finger of cold air down the back of his neck when he walked outside.

“Hey, do you mind if I drive? I’m getting better on stick shift, but my car isn’t exactly the best for practicing.”

Ronan reached into his pocket to hand the keys to Adam. He saw Adam’s request for what it was: an excuse to make sure Ronan wouldn’t be driving like this. Ronan couldn’t begrudge him that. Even as a fan of reckless driving, he wouldn’t trust himself to drive like this. He’s not even entirely sure he remembered driving to Nino’s. That was probably a bad thing.

Pulling the keys from his coat pocket, he overestimated his force and ended up throwing the keys on the asphalt of the parking lot. Adam quickly bent down the grab them, and walked very close to Ronan until he got into the BMW. If Ronan didn’t know better, he’d say Adam was hovering.

“I’m not an invalid, Parrish. You can back the fuck off now.”

Adam raised his hands in mock surrender as they got into the car and drove away.

The drive to Adam’s apartment was quiet, the silence only disturbed by the purring of the BMW’s engine. Ronan wished he could play loud music, or at least energetic music. His behavior was often shaped by the music he listened to, and right now he needed to be awake. However, Adam was the one who turned the music off when he’d gotten in the car, and Ronan didn’t want to raise more suspicion than he’d already raised.

Adam, in the driver’s seat, kept looking at Ronan out of the corner of his eye. Fuck. He wasn’t doing a great job with this whole “avoiding suspicion” thing.

Time was being slippery again, since they arrived at Adam’s apartment between blinks. Adam shut off the car, and pulled the keys from the ignition. He turned them idly in his hand as he gave Ronan a considering stare.

“I think you should spend the night, Ronan,” Adam said, looking away to the keys in his hand. “Something is going on that you’re not telling me.”

Ronan scoffed, or at least made a valiant effort at scoffing. “Whatever, Parrish.”

Adam gave him one last long look, then opened the door and got out of the car. Ronan fumbled at the door handle, then followed behind. Once he closed the door, Adam used the key fob to lock it. Ronan sighed, his breath making a cloud of fog in the night air.

Adam was outlined in the rectangle of light formed by the open door to the church offices. The yellow light from behind him caught in his hair and formed a halo around his head. He was beautiful. Ronan shook his head to clear the thought, then followed Adam into the church offices.

The stairs up to Adam’s apartment were a little tricky, but he kept one hand firmly on the railing and both eyes on the next step and managed it just fine. When he finally made it into Adam’s apartment, Adam was looking contemplatively at the pile of blankets on his bed. The inside of the apartment was not much warmer than the outside. Ronan imagined he could almost see his breath in the apartment.

Adam turned to Ronan and asked, “Would you mind sharing the bed with me? There’s really not enough blankets to split them and have both of us be warm.”

Ronan toed off his shoes at the door, right next to Adam’s shoes. “Sure.”

He peeled off his jacket as Adam handed him a ragged pair of sweatpants he’d left there weeks ago on another night where he’d come to sleep on Adam’s floor. Grunting his thanks, Ronan stripped off his jeans and put on the sweatpants. The fabric was soft on his skin.

Adam had already climbed into the bed, and was facing the wall. Ronan carefully laid down on his side beside Adam, trying not to touch him. This was mostly impossible, since Adam’s bed was not that large to begin with, and neither of them were particularly small people.

All Ronan had to do was wait for Adam to fall asleep so that he could get up and try to keep himself awake. He listened carefully to Adam’s breathing to watch for any change in it. He tried to keep his own breath steady enough not to raise suspicion.

Ronan wasn’t entirely sure how much time had passed before before he finally heard Adam’s breath even out. It felt like a couple of hours, but he’d never been the best at judging the passage of time. He decided to give it a few more minutes to make sure Adam was well and truly asleep before he tried to get up.

It was going to be unpleasant. Adam’s room was so cold, and Ronan was so warm beneath the covers. Adam was breathing steadily behind him and radiating heat. 

Surely he of all people could manage to stay awake without having to get up.

* * *

 

The light in Adam’s room was pale and watered down when Ronan woke up, reflecting off the walls that were freshly whitewashed last week and making the room glow. It seemed like all the darkness of his previous dreams had been purged in the clean light. Ronan felt more rested and calm than he’d been for the whole week. 

Adam himself was working on Latin conjugations at his desk in silence while Ronan pretended not to be staring at him.

From the glances Adam kept giving him, Ronan supposed he wasn't being as subtle as he should have been. To be fair, he was still basically running on next-to-no sleep. It was still really early in the morning, not much past dawn. He was willing to cut himself some slack for that.

The morning was peaceful and still. Ronan let himself soak in the restfulness, let it cure the anxiety he’d had about sleeping. Adam truly lived in a sanctuary. 

“Is something wrong, Ronan?”

Adam was looking at him with concern and something else that Ronan didn’t dare try to name. It was a foreign expression on Adam’s face either way.

“Nothing that’s your problem, Parrish.”

Adam gave Ronan a very small and fond smile, and grabbed his hand.

“You can call me Adam, you know.”

“You’re in an awfully good mood.”  _ Am I dreaming? _

Adam lifted their joined hands to his lips, and pressed a kiss to the back of Ronan’s hand. “Yes.”

Startled, Ronan looked up from where he’d been staring at their hands, “What?”

Adam leaned towards him and Ronan’s heart leapt into his throat. Adam’s lips brushed close to his ear, and for a moment Ronan could hear nothing but his blood pounding in his veins.

Adam whispered to him, “This isn’t real, Ronan.”

Ronan drew back from Adam in confusion. Adam’s voice seemed to echo in Ronan’s head, loud and more garbled with each repetition. The words folded over and over each other, spiralling into incoherency. He couldn’t seem to focus his eyes anymore. The world around him dripped and warped like wax from a melting candle.

The image of Adam’s face zoomed towards him like a train rushing through a tunnel, as the world on the periphery turned to black. Adam was growing fangs and claws as he flew towards Ronan through the heaviness of the black space.

Everything was spinning and spinning and spinning and—

Ronan bolted awake, immediately sitting upright in the bed, gasping for air and trying to stop the room from moving around him.

His stomach lurched from nausea, and he only barely made it to a trashcan before vomiting. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

“Ronan.”

He was sobbing in between desperate gulps of air. He focused on taking one rattling breath after another, as a hand settled down on his shoulder. The room kept spinning behind his closed eyelids.

“Ronan!”

Eyes still shut, Ronan ground out through gritted teeth, “I’m fine.” 

Finally, everything settled down enough that Ronan felt like he could safely open his eyes. Adam—the real Adam—was looking at him with concern gathered in the narrowed corners of his eyes. His hand was still resting on Ronan’s shoulder, and he was idly rubbing circles with his thumb.

When Adam saw Ronan looking at him, he immediately let go and went to get a glass of water for Ronan. Ronan was still gripping the sides of the trashcan and trying to get a hold of himself. He couldn’t stop shaking. His insides still felt watery and weak.

Adam handed him the glass of water before disappearing out of Ronan’s field of vision again. He returned carrying the keys to the BMW and his backpack, and said, “I’m driving you back to Monmouth. You should rest in a real bed if you’re sick.”

_ I can’t risk sleeping again. _ “I’m fine, Parrish.”

Adam raised an incredulous eyebrow, and leveled Ronan with his best imitation of Gansey’s mom look. “Get your shoes and take the trash can with you. We’re going back to Monmouth.”

Groaning in pain as he unclenched his straining muscles, Ronan got his shoes on with only minor stumbling. His stomach twinged with cramps as another wave of nausea hit. His head was pounding. He could barely keep his eyes open.

Adam helped him into his coat.

Trying to save some of his pride, Ronan walked out the door, only to end up stumbling against the doorframe in an effort to remain upright. Adam rushed forward, hands extended, to try and catch him before he fell down. Wrapping one of Ronan’s arms around his shoulders and his arm around Ronan’s waist, Adam helped Ronan out to the BMW.

****

Getting down the stairs at the church had been tricky. Going up the stairs at Monmouth was going to be impossible.

Adam, in the driver’s seat of Ronan’s BMW, was eyeing the stairs with an appraising look, and then used Ronan’s phone to call Gansey.

“Hey, could you come and help me get Ronan upstairs? He’s sick.”

Adam paused, listening to Gansey’s response. 

“Yeah, we’re out front right now.”

There was a longer pause.

“Okay. I’ll wait with him until you get back, but please hurry. He doesn’t look so good.”

Ronan didn’t feel so good.

He felt like he had just gone on a Tilt-a-Whirl after a full ten course meal. His stomach was churning, and his teeth ached from clenching them so hard.

Time lost all meaning.Gansey pulled up a short while later; Gansey pulled up ages later. Either way, the thundering engine of the Pig interrupted the relative silence of the night. Ronan felt himself wake up a little bit, even though he hadn’t been aware he’d been dozing.

Adam got out of the car, and a refreshing wave of cold night air settled Ronan for a little bit. Gansey and Adam had a brief conversation on the driver’s side of the car. During their conversation, Blue got out of the passenger seat of the Pig and joined them.

Ronan would have made a crack about what appeared to be a Gansey and Blue “alone time” excursion, but his brain was pounding so hard against his head that it was almost a physical ache.

In the end, it took all three of them, plus Noah, to help get Ronan to the second floor landing. He knew he probably wasn’t being too helpful, but his limbs just didn’t want to cooperate with what he wanted them to do. 

Noah directed them to the couch. Wringing his hands nervously, he said, “Chainsaw freaked out in his room and tore up his bed.”

“That’s strange,” Gansey said, as he pulled the covers and pillow from his bed and brought them over to Ronan. “Chainsaw doesn’t generally do that sort of thing. Maybe she’s throwing a tantrum?”

There was a pause as the three of them hovered around Ronan, making sure he was covered and comfortable. Adam spoke suddenly, breaking the spell of quiet, “No, I don’t think that’s what this is. Noah, Blue. Would you mind keeping an eye on Ronan for a little bit?”

Gansey and Adam walked to the landing just outside the door. As soon as they got there and closed the door most of the way, Adam started talking in a low but urgent voice. Ronan couldn’t make out any of the words, but his tone of voice said enough. He was worried.

Even though Ronan was worrying Adam, the cadence of Adam’s voice was still soothing enough that Ronan felt himself drifting off, helpless to do anything about it. Blue was stroking his head in a way that he assumed would work better if he had hair, but was still comforting enough to send him the rest of the way into his unwilling sleep.

* * *

 

She held out a vial full of something pale grey and swirling. The witch’s completely black eyes revealed nothing except the reflection of his own frightened face.

“This shows whether or not you are worthy.”

Ronan was afraid to ask what the smoke would show him worthy  _ of _ . He was afraid that he wouldn’t be worthy of anything.

Off behind her, he saw another person, kneeling with their hands tied behind their back. Two men in black—their guards—held their arms as they thrashed around, screaming in agony.

Ronan swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. 

The witch held his right hand by the wrist. Ronan closed his eyes and clenched his jaw.

He heard the sound of the vial being unstoppered, and felt a rush of prickling tingles crawl into his fingertips and up his arm. It felt like touching fog, or the smoke from liquid nitrogen. Suddenly, Ronan was struck by the knowledge that she had poured a cloud into his fingertips, his very blood.

The prickles became more like needles, stabbing at his skin. Ronan was so aware of his body. He could feel each of his veins widening, the blood inside of them crystallizing into ice. His skin felt like it was about to be pushed open from the inside.

Ronan gasped in pain, muscles convulsing, and wrenched his eyes open. 

Blue and a mostly corporeal Noah were shaking him, trying to get him to wake up, not realizing that he was already awake. His brain was sluggish, and so he could only stare at them dazedly as his body continued to spasm helplessly.

“Gansey!”

Blue was keeping up a frantic stream of words, “Oh my god, wake up, Ronan. Wake up. Wake up!”

Finally,  _ finally _ , Ronan’s body stilled and he was able to catch his breath again. The knuckles of his hands were red and swollen, and he had purple lines tracing up the veins of his arm.

Blue looked very pale as she leaned over him. Ronan tried to sit up, but found it impossible without Blue jumping to help him. Looking around, he saw a similar amount of fear on each of their faces. Adam was staring at him, wide eyed and solemn. Gansey was thumbing his lip with frantic concentration.

“I, uh.”

Ronan’s voice sounded as though he’d been screaming. Maybe he had.

He cleared his throat and tried again.

“I’ve been having some trouble with my dreams lately.”

* * *

 

Ronan hadn’t even gotten around to the telling of the worst parts of the dreaming, when Adam interrupted and said, “We need to go to 300 Fox Way. Immediately.”

He had tried to protest, but Gansey just wrapped him in another blanket and shuffled him off to the car. They all crammed into the Pig as usual, but the atmosphere was serious. There was no laughter. No music. Just wide eyes carefully watching Ronan’s face for any sign of him falling asleep.

Ha. As if he could sleep now.

Blue was sitting in the backseat next to him. Her hands fluttered around helplessly, like she wanted to touch him, but didn’t know what she should do. Ronan grabbed one of her hands to keep her still. Blue’s fingers were cold, but it was surprisingly nice to hold it regardless.

The drive to 300 Fox Way continued in tense silence. They were all waiting for something else bad to happen.

Calla answered the door once they got there. She gave Ronan an appraising look that scanned him head to toe, missing nothing.

“Oh, so it’s  _ that  _ kind of problem,” she said, raising one arched brow. “Let’s get you situated in the main room so we can figure something out.”

Blue and Ronan, still holding hands, followed after Calla. Gansey and Adam walked shortly behind them. The house was not known for being a scary place, but tonight it seemed like the shadows flickered ominously at the corners of Ronan’s eyes. He was not used to being afraid, and he didn’t like it.

Calla gestured to a couch, which Ronan sank onto gratefully. It was beginning to feel like a momentous effort to keep himself upright. Every part of him just ached. He felt himself beginning to shake minutely, but he didn’t know if it was from cold or anxiety.

“Let me go get Maura. We figured something like this would be happening soon,” Calla said. She set a plate of cookies down on the table in front of Ronan, along with a cup of tea with questionable flavor. “Now drink up.”

Glowering ineffectively at Calla, Ronan grabbed the teacup and took a wary sip under Calla’s watchful eye. He was pleasantly surprised to discover that it was really tasty actually, full of holiday flavors. The orange and cloves settled him. Ronan felt so much more grounded now.

Nodding in satisfaction, Calla turned to go get Maura.

Just as she had almost left the room, Calla suddenly whirled to face Ronan, and, voice full of barbs, asked, “Why didn’t you come to us with this sooner?”

“I was handling it on my own,” Ronan said, teeth bared.

Ronan knew he looked too fragile right then to pull off the look with any sort of intimidation. Some things just had to be done for traditions sake, however. Calla seemed more unnerved by the pale shadow of a snarl than she had been by any of the full force ones he’d given her in the past.

A few moments later, Maura entered the room, wrapped in a worn pink bathrobe. Everything seemed softer in this early dawn light. She took one look at Ronan, and immediately gave Calla a look. They were having a silent conversation with their eyes.

“We’ll have to do a reading then,” Maura said finally, turning to look back at the rest of them. “This isn’t a good time for it, but we’ll have to do it anyway.”

Adam was a warm presence just behind the back of the couch. His hands rested on Ronan’s shoulders, right on his collarbones. Adam’s thumb idly rubbed the back of Ronan’s neck, and Ronan couldn’t help but to lean into the touch.

Calla snapped her fingers at them. “You heard her, Coca-Cola. We need a third. Get moving.”

Adam jumped away from Ronan and followed Maura and Calla into the reading room.

****

Once they were in the reading room, Calla covered the windows with the thick curtains, completely blocking out the watery daylight. There were three white candles on the table, each resting in their own crystal holder. Their flames cast flickering and dancing shadows on the walls around them. 

Adam felt a bit like a usurper in this place. He felt like was trying to occupy an empty space that Calla and Maura did not want filled, or at least not by him. He just wanted to be useful. He owed them that, at the very least.

Clearing his throat a bit, Adam asked, “Cards or scrying?”

“Cards first. If we can’t get any conclusive answers, then scrying,” Maura said. She opened a drawer and pulled out the wooden box that contained her tarot cards. “What kind of spread, Adam? You know Ronan best.”

“Um, let’s try three each. Three threes sounds like a good set up.”

Adam had brought his backpack, suspecting he might be needing the cards Persephone had given him. Pulling out the purple silk bag, he held the cards in his hands. They were warm to the touch and seemed to be buzzing with power.

The three of them stood side by side by side in front of the table. Each drew three cards from their deck and laid them out. All of their spreads were the same. 

Five of Wands. 

Nine of Swords.

The Devil.

For a moment, they were stunned into silence. Then Maura and Calla started bickering loudly about what was the proper course of action for such a grim spread.

Calla went to the bookshelf on the other end of the room, and Maura followed. The book was about wards or about dreams, Adam was unclear. He was still having trouble being entirely present in this moment. It felt like Cabeswater was about to pull him into a vision, which was weird. Cabeswater should have been able to tell him what he needed to do through the cards.

The cards were still buzzing on the edge of Adam’s awareness. There was something else Cabeswater wanted to tell him, apparently. The top card felt burning hot. Adam turned it over. 

The Magician.

Cabeswater whispered in his deaf ear desperately, but Adam couldn’t seem to hear it. He stared into one of the lit candles and let his mind go blank. Calla and Maura’s voices faded into nothing as the sound of the wind rushed past his ears. 

****

They were all technically supposed to be at school that day, but after everything that had happened in the last twelve hours, even Gansey felt they were justified in skipping for the day.

Lacking the rigid schedule of a school day, Gansey channelled his need for order into making a Ronan-watch schedule for himself, Blue, and Noah while they waited for a solution to come about. No one had come up with any other solutions besides “make sure Ronan doesn’t sleep” yet, so their job mainly consisted of waking Ronan up when he dozed.

Gansey was the one who was the most overbearing on his turns to watch Ronan. He hovered close to Ronan, and Ronan couldn’t even blink for too long before Gansey was shaking him awake. 

Blue mostly just played cards with him to keep him awake. It was really boring for both of them, but it gave Ronan something to keep his hands busy and his mind focused on something other than how fucking tired he was.

Noah was the most hands off. In fact, Ronan was never really aware of his presence until Noah was waking him up shortly after he started dozing. Noah seemed to know exactly how long to let him doze before he started dreaming, so Ronan was able to take power naps. 

A cold breeze spluttered across Ronan’s face; he’d have thought it was Noah trying to wake him up if it were only a little bit stronger. He faintly heard raised voices in another room. When he didn’t feel anything else, he figured he could safely doze a little bit more before Gansey and his paranoia started up their shift.

* * *

 

He dangled above a whirlpool. The waves below him circled.

No.

They were wolves.

No.

They were both waves and wolves, their fur a swirl of green and grey. They stalked in a spiral, no clear distinction between the end of one and the start of the next. Their dark eyes were fathomless. Their teeth were made of shards of the chalk cliffs and there were human bones being crushed beneath their paws.

Ronan grasped more tightly at the rocky overhang he was clinging to. His legs swung freely below him over a truly sickening drop into empty space. His fingers were being stripped raw by the rough face, but he would fall to his death if he were to let go.

The wind pulled at him with wicked fingers that stroked along his neck and down his arms. It pried at where his fingers were white knuckled against the rock. Each gust brought with it a dark chuckle.

Ronan’s arms were shaking from holding himself up so long. He didn’t think he could manage to keep this precarious position for much longer.

_ “Come join us, Ronan. Let go. It is easier to die than to keep hurting like this, _ ” they whispered with oily hissing straight into his mind. It was the call of the void given voice. It twined and twisted around his head until it became virtually indistinguishable from his own dark thoughts.

Ronan’s hands relaxed slightly on the rock, and he slid closer to the edge. He wanted to let go so badly. To give in. To be free of this pain once and for all. All he had to do was stop fighting it.

No. 

He couldn’t. He wouldn’t.

“You have to try one more time, Ronan,” a familiar voice echoed around him. It was like a warm ray of sunshine. “You have to survive.”

Ronan pulled up one last time to see if he could make it to safety. Desperation must have lent him strength, since he found himself cresting the edge of the cliff inch by painful inch. With one final agonized yell, he managed to flop onto the edge of the cliff.

Too late, Ronan heard the sound of the cliff cracking, breaking, falling into the ocean below and taking him with it.

The wind rushed by him, tearing the breath from his lungs as he went into freefall. All he could do was look upwards as he plummeted to his doom in the whirlpool below.

Only, it wasn’t a whirlpool anymore.

Ronan was falling through trees, their branches whipping around him and slowing his fall. The sharp tips of the branches cut at his arms, his back, his face, but they didn’t seem to be doing it out of malice. Instead, they reached out to him, sacrificing their leaves to slow his fall, to save him.

His body weight caused the branches to snap and the trees to groan. Air whistled past his ears, getting quieter the more he slowed.

The trees seemed to grow around him to fill the empty space between him and the ground. He scrabbled at the branches to try and bring himself to a stop. The forest grew denser beneath him. He still couldn’t breathe, both from the wind ripping the air from his lungs, and the buffeting of the branches.

The forest seemed to watch him with its breath held, throwing more plants to gather around him. Ronan eventually came to rest in a net of vines, twined together to catch him.

As the vines grew around him, cocooned him, and hugged him safely to its heart, he heard a distant howling that could have been wolves or wind.

*****

Ronan blinked awake, and felt a grit like salt or sand in the corners of his eyes.

In the corner of the room, Adam had his shirt pulled up to his chest. Adam kept grimacing and flinching as Blue dabbed at something on his stomach.

Calla was ranting at Adam. “You could have gotten the both of you killed!”

“But I didn't.”

“You could have! You can’t go throwing yourself into things without knowing what the hell you're doing!”

Adam clenched his jaw. “I had to do something. He was dying.”

Calla just glared at Adam. 

Gansey spoke off to his side, interrupting the argument. “He’s awake now.”

Gansey was looking at Ronan with a pinched expression. The space between his eyebrows was creased.

Ronan felt shaken and pale. The dark circles under his eyes at this point felt as dark and permanent as his tattoo.

He was just so tired. He felt it like an ache deep in his bones.

There were scratches and bruises all along Ronan’s arms. His fingertips were bloody and raw. With Gansey’s help, he managed to sit upright on the couch, his feet firmly on the floor.

Adam turned around to face Ronan. He had four jagged scratches that went from the bottom of his ribcage on his left side to his right hip. Blood was smeared in a thin sheen on his torso from where Blue hadn’t gotten it all. Adam’s hair was matted to his forehead with sweat.

Adam followed Ronan’s gaze and, upon seeing Ronan’s distressed expression, dropped his shirt back over his stomach. The white fabric was slightly bloody over the scratches.

Everyone else seemed to take this as their cue to make a graceful exit from the room.

Adam walked over to Ronan, and knelt in front of him. Ronan’s hands clenched where they rested on his knees. Adam was looking at him, staring searchingly into his eyes.

Whatever he was looking for, he seemed to find, because after a few moments, Adam turned his gaze to Ronan’s hands. Adam’s was exceedingly gentle as he lifted Ronan’s fist up. He uncurled Ronan’s fingers while looking at Ronan very intently.

When Ronan’s hands were finally open, Adam turned his hand this way and that, searching for all the injuries to it.

Upon seeing the rawness of Ronan’s fingertips, Adam said, “Jesus, Ronan. What happened?”

“I could ask the same of you,” Ronan rasped.

One of Adam’s hands came to rest on his stomach, right over a bloodstain. Laughing humorlessly, he said, “Apparently wolves don’t like it when you take away their dinner.”

Ronan had been staring at his hand where Adam’s had wrapped around it, but immediately whipped his eyes up to look Adam in the eye.

Horrified, Ronan whispered, “You got those because of me?”

Adam didn’t say anything for a moment, merely pressed his lips tightly together. Finally he said, “There wasn’t any time for anything more nuanced. I did what I had to do.”

“That doesn’t mean putting yourself in danger for me!”

Adam grabbed the sides of Ronan’s face and forced Ronan to look him in the eye. “That’s exactly what it means.”

Ronan felt himself blush, and just as he started to say something,  _ anything _ , Maura walked in holding bandages and antiseptic, and a crumbling leather box.

“Oh! Am I interrupting something?”

Adam pulled away from Ronan and stood to meet her in the center of the room. “Not at all. I’m going to go ask Cabeswater again to see if there’s something else we can be doing.”

Gansey and Blue hovered in the doorway hesitantly, and Adam brushed past them on his way out. 

“You gave us all a real scare, you shithead,” Blue said, sounding like she was going for nonchalant, but landing a few shades too pale. “It would have been a pain to deal with you if you’d died.”

“Might have been nice not to deal with you two annoying me for a while,” Ronan replied. He was going for snarky and completely missed it, but it was the effort that mattered at this point.

Blue ignored the half-hearted dig, and sat next to Ronan on the couch. She hooked elbows with him and took hold of his hand. Gansey sat on his other side. Ronan sighed and leaned his head on Gansey’s shoulder. He didn’t have enough energy to pretend not to care about Blue and Gansey at this point.

They were all giving as much comfort to each other as they were taking. This quiet moment felt loaded with apprehension for what else might be coming soon.

Ronan didn’t know if he could handle it.

* * *

 

Adam took the largest scrying bowl from Persephone’s things. The diameter of the bowl was nearly the span of both of Adam’s hands. It was a shallow dish, with only enough of a lip to hold a few centimeters of liquid at the most. 

The bowl was the blackest thing Adam had ever seen.

That wasn’t strictly true.

The bowl was the black of Persephone’s eyes. It seemed to hold the secrets of the entire universe within itself. Adam wasn’t sure he was ready to know them all yet.

Adam filled the bowl with a bottle of pomegranate juice. He wasn’t entirely sure, but he got the impression it had been purchased specifically with this purpose in mind.

It wouldn’t work for him to be going into this so unsettled. Adam could feel his hands shaking, still caught up in the adrenaline and fear of Ronan’s near death. He was so afraid. There was so much to lose if he couldn’t find a solution.

He wouldn’t be able to solve anything unless he settled himself. Adam focused on taking slow and deep breaths. Gradually, Adam relaxed, letting his hands lay on either side of the scrying bowl.

Leaning forward over the bowl, Adam saw only his own reflection. He had to look beyond himself to hear Cabeswater. Pushing his mind forward, Adam fell into a vision.

****

The third sleeper, its name already lost to history, already the relic of some forgotten past, prowled the outer edges of the warded forest. Its smoky form made it indistinct in the dark of the night, with only its bright yellow eyes visible.

Just within the boundaries of the forest stood a girl. Her dark eyes glinted fiercely above sharp cheekbones. Vines twined around her ankles, drawing power from her just as it was giving it to her. The sheer force of her willpower created some invisible barrier that guarded to the very edges of the trees.

She was both a guardian and a vessel: the hands and eyes, yes, but also the sword the hand wielded. She was a soldier. She was a one person army. She stared down evil with determination in her eyes and certainty in her hands.

Time sped forward in the vision. The forest grew, but the barrier was unchanging.

There was a different girl, then a boy, and on and on in an unbroken line. Each belonged to Cabeswater in the same way Adam himself knew he did. Each owned Cabeswater’s power in the same way Adam suspected he did.

Leaves rustled in Adam’s ears as the vision changed. This one had a hazy quality to it. It was no longer a memory. It was a request.

He saw himself in a clearing that felt like the heart of the forest. Darkness circled around the clearing, darting through the trees more and more boldly.

Cabeswater didn’t seem to have a vision to tell him what it wanted from him, so it drew from his memory.

Ronan, striking his father. Gansey, an anchoring presence beside him in the courtroom. Persephone, handing him a slice of pie. Blue, waking him from scrying in the cave.

Times where others had lent him strength when he’d needed. Given him the power to defend himself. Given him the power to defend others.

The leaves rustled in agreement.

_ We need our hands _ , Cabeswater whispered in Latin.  _ It is time for war. _

Adam stepped forward in his mind once more. He knew what he needed to do now.

* * *

 

Adam gathered them all up in the reading room. During his scrying, he had apparently figured out exactly what was wrong with Ronan, and exactly what Cabeswater needed them to do about it.

“We need to go  _ now _ ,” Adam said. He was pointedly not looking at Ronan just then. “We’re running out of time.”

Maura came forward with the crumbly leather box she’d brought out earlier. “I might have something that could help with that.”

Handing the box to Ronan, she continued, “It’s a protection talisman. My great grandmother made it nearly a century ago with strict instructions that it was only to be used when you are in dire need of more time. I think this is it.”

Ronan tried to open the box, but his fingers were being uncooperative on the small buckles keeping it closed. Blue gently took the box from him and undid the straps. Reaching inside, he drew out a small wooden object. It was nearly perfectly the shape of Ronan’s palm. Holding it between his thumb and forefinger, he squinted to look at it. 

The color of it seemed to be swimming. Wait, no. It was completely covered in intricate carvings of feathers, the pale cuts creating swirling designs in the dark blue of the dye.

Ronan clutched it in his hand. The talisman had a comforting weight. Each of its curves seemed perfectly tailored to the contours of his palm. He immediately felt more settled in a way that seemed impossible to explain. He closed his eyes and sighed gently.

“Thank you, Maura,” Ronan said, eyes still closed.

“We have some other stuff for the rest of you to take with you,” Calla said, “so start loading up your car.”

Blue and Ronan walked out to the car together to go sit in the backseat to wait. Gansey and Adam stayed behind to collect whatever Calla planned to give them. 

****

Adam loaded up the several boxes of stones and the tackle box Calla had given them into the back of the Pig before slamming the trunk shut.

Ronan was already settled in the backseat with Blue. It was a sign of how worn out Ronan was that he didn’t even protest when Blue held his hand. He only leaned on her shoulder and clutched the talisman tightly to his chest. Blue was the shorter of the two of them, but now it was Ronan who looked small, all curled in on himself. The paleness of his skin made him look fragile. He looked like a shirt washed too many times, faded and worn thin.

Gansey thumbed his lower lip anxiously as he drove them to Cabeswater. He kept glancing back at Ronan in the rearview mirror occasionally.

Once they pulled up to the field Adam had been directing them to, they all filed out of the car. Adam and Blue grabbed all the supplies out of the trunk while Gansey hovered right next to Ronan. At a nod from Adam, they all cautiously crept forward into the forest.

It was usually difficult to tell when they’d crossed into Cabeswater, but not today. 

Just inside the boundary line that defined Cabeswater, Ronan collapsed in a boneless heap. Gansey let out a wordless cry as he took Ronan’s full weight and nearly fell down.

Passing the supplies he’d been carrying over to Blue, Adam went over to Gansey and Ronan to help move Ronan. He and Gansey managed to carry Ronan by slinging one of his arms over each of their shoulders. They walked on into the forest in a fearful silence. The full weight of what they were undertaking seemed to finally be hitting them.

Reaching the clearing Cabeswater had instructed them to find, Adam and Gansey laid Ronan in the center of it. Ronan immediately curled in on himself even more and shuddered, clutching the talisman even closer.

Adam took back the supplies from Blue, and got to work as quickly as he felt it was safe to do so.

* * *

 

Cabeswater was quieter than usual. The trees were utterly still. Everything seemed to be holding its breath. Ronan felt the air quivering with potential.

No. That was the ground.

He felt a distant rumbling in the soles of his feet. It rattled his bones. The world around him pressed close like a plastic film, coating him with the strain of its waiting.

The rumbling grew more and more intense. He felt the earth roiling beneath him. Every part of him was pulled taut and set to motion, like a violin string being plucked. He could feel himself unravelling.

Just when he thought he couldn’t handle anything more, everything stopped. Instead of feeling safer, Ronan just became more afraid. 

It didn’t feel like the battle was over. It felt like the calm before the shitstorm. 

Ronan looked out to the forest in front of him. Five feet into the woods was a wall of impenetrable darkness. He took a tentative step forward to look into it.

Suddenly, a massive beast shot out from the woods. It was an Irish elk. Its massive antlers scraped bark off the trees as it ran full speed past Ronan.

Another quickly ran past too.

Hundreds of elk sprinted past Ronan, tumbling over each other and themselves. Dirt raised by their pounding feet twirled and twisted, pulled along by eddies of air.

Ronan stood stock still, trying to avoid being trampled, but the animals simply parted around him. He felt like he should be turning and running with them.

Nothing ran like that unless it was being chased.

Gradually, the herd thinned until there were only stragglers remaining. Ronan turned to see if he could see any sign of the elk behind him. It was silent and still, as if they’d never been at all. It was possible they hadn’t, since he was probably dreaming.

Ronan turned back to the direction the animals had come from. Off in the distance, he heard a sound like trees breaking. The air seemed to hum with a constant low roar. 

Water spilled from between the trees in tiny rivulets. They went past him through the clearing, completely avoiding a circle around Ronan. Soon, rivulets fattened into streams. More and more water kept coming in an unending wave. The water level rose and rose. The low roar was deafening now. 

The water kept avoiding a sphere around him. Ronan suspected that that was the doing of Maura’s talisman she’d given him. It seemed to be doing an admirable job giving him more time. Still, Ronan watched anxiously as the water closed over the top of his head and kept on rushing past.

Ronan had never been good at being afraid. He figured that a malevolent wall of water could do that to anyone, though. He needed to control his breathing before he did something stupid like hyperventilate.

Was it just his imagination, or was the bubble around him getting smaller?

The water kept coming. His breath fogged in the air around him. The water must have been close to freezing for it to drop the temperature so much. Goosebumps rose on his skin, and Ronan couldn’t help but shiver. He shifted his arms to try and warm himself, and his elbow brushed up against the side of the barrier.

The bubble was definitely getting smaller.

Ronan tried to convince himself that there was no use panicking, but his brain just didn’t want to listen. All his logic spun circles around the imminent weight in his gut that was the idea of his forthcoming drowning. He thought he’d want to face his death head-on, but now that he was staring it in the face, he didn’t want anything to do with it.

A spray of icy water burst through the barrier formed by the talisman, a stark contrast to the warm tears on Ronan’s face.

*****   
“Adam! Whatever you’re doing, you’d better do it quick!”

Adam didn’t look up, didn’t respond. His only acknowledgement that Blue had spoken was to marginally increase the speed of his work. He couldn’t afford to be hasty in this. Each stone had to be arranged precisely in its position for this to have even a prayer of working. Adam could feel when it was in the right place, since the world seemed to snap into focus like he was adjusting the lens of a camera.

He was nearly done with the third perfect spiral around the edge of the clearing. Ronan’s sleeping form lay stock still in the exact center of them, curled in on himself with one hand clutching the talisman to his chest. Maura had given it to them to temporarily ward Ronan’s sleep while they tried to shore up the ley line.

It wasn’t intended to be a perfect fix. The talisman’s sole purpose was to buy them just a little bit of extra time. And, based on Blue’s tone of voice, it seemed their borrowed time was running out.

Adam placed the final stone, a pebble no larger than his pinkie nail, and went to the tackle box of miscellaneous esoteric and occult supplies Calla had shoved into his arms when they had left 300 Fox Way. Inside, a myriad crystals and herbs all called out for his attention. He had no idea what he was supposed to be doing.

A bag of salt rested in the largest compartment of the tackle box. Adam figured salt couldn’t be all that bad of thing to try using. Persephone had told him it was good for a lot of things. Maybe warding was one of them.

Adam felt a wave of helplessness flood over him. Cabeswater was good with telling him what to do about rocks and plants, but it seemed to have no way to help him with the actual magic of the warding. This was up to him.

Fuck. Now he was panicking. 

_ Are you a magician or not? _

Taking a deep breath to center himself, he cleared his mind and let his own instincts guide him.

Between breaths, Adam took a step back in his mind. Hands he vaguely recognized as his own hovered over the tackle box. It was like he was controlling them from a great distance.

The hands picked up bundles of fresh rosemary, juniper, and rue from the box. Additionally, they grabbed a dark, nearly black stone perfectly sized to fit in a palm. The last thing taken from the box was a white candle. These items were supposed to be arranged around Ronan, with the three of them to settle the magic. They each would have a different herb, set to smouldering by the white candle. 

Something to do. Great.

Adam stepped forward in his mind once more, embracing the clarity of action.

“Gansey, stand between the spirals to the left of Ronan. Blue, to the right.”

Happy to have something to do besides stand around worrying, Blue and Gansey jumped to their assigned positions. Adam sprinkled the salt in an outline around Ronan on the floor of the clearing. The salt spread out from around his head like a halo. The fingers on the hand near Ronan’s face were slightly curled into his palm. Adam placed the dark stone in this hand.

Next, Adam handed a bundle of herbs to Blue and Gansey, rue to Gansey and juniper to Blue. The rosemary he kept for himself. 

Blue and Gansey were watching him with wide eyes. Wide out of fear or awe, he couldn’t tell. It didn’t matter at this point. What mattered was saving Ronan.

Adam let his eyes go a bit unfocused at he stood between of the spirals in front of Ronan’s head. He held the candle out in front of him, and felt, more than saw, it splutter to life.

“Go ahead and light your herbs from the candle now.”

His voice sounded cold and detached. It seemed to ring with some greater power. 

Gansey and Blue held their smoking bundle of herbs as they stood in their places. Adam lit his own own bundle of herbs, then placed the candle right above Ronan’s head. Taking a deep breath, Adam felt the energy in the clearing snap together into something tangible and solid. By the way Blue gasped, Adam figured she felt it too.

Adam was thrown headlong into Ronan’s dream. He felt no danger here though. Adam was in Ronan’s dream, but he was not of it. He knew what to do.

*****

Water poured in around Ronan now. In a few moments, he would be entirely at the mercy of the flood. He tried not to panic any more than he already had, but could feel the fear rising in him as surely as the water that gripped him in its frigid hands.

Right before the water covered his head, he took one last deep breath. Ronan couldn’t imagine it would do much good, but he also couldn’t help but do it.

The trees around him swayed, pushed by the eddies of water. He tried calling out to them for help.

“Cabeswater,” Ronan said, huge bubbles escaping from his mouth. His brain was failing to problem-solve. “Cabeswater, air.”

His lung were burning from trying to keep what little oxygen he had left in them. Ronan was going to drown. The cold numbed him, and Ronan could feel himself losing the fight.

Suddenly, Ronan felt the water around him warm incrementally, and then it warmed so much more. A golden light filtered through the water. It was like the sun had risen beside him.

The water recoiled from the light as if it were poison. The radius of the light spread in a rush, pushing the water back to the edges of the clearing. Ronan fell to the muddy ground, gasping for air and coughing up lungfuls of the murky water.

Gold light filled the entire clearing now, leaving the water to circle the clearing ominously around. Ronan turned to look at the source of the light, and saw Adam standing in the center of the clearing.

Adam, arms held loosely at his sides, was a beacon of power. He radiated it like he radiated light. Adam was not looking at Ronan, however, but beyond him, eyes locked on something just outside the clearing with a weary and intense determination. Magician, indeed.

It wasn’t always possible to see the raw power that pulsed beneath Adam’s skin, the pure steel that made his spine. But now that Adam was squared up to do battle, it seemed like it would have been impossible to ignore.

Just outside the touch of the light, a shadowy figure emerged from the forest. The water seemed to have faded or disappeared.

“ _ I see Cabeswater has sent another little boy after me, _ ” said the shadowy figure. Its voice was sinuous and oily. The only distinct part it of it was its yellow eyes. They were merciless and inhuman, and everything in Ronan wanted to run away at the sight of them.

Ronan recognized the voice, though. This figure must have been the force trying to kill him in his dreams. He shivered in fear.

“The third sleeper,” Adam whispered, exhaling his words nervously.

The shadowy figure—the third sleeper—bared its pointed and shadowy teeth in a terrifying facsimile of a smile. The sight of it made Ronan want to dig a hole in the ground and never leave it. However, Adam seemed spurred to action.

“Go from this place,” Adam said, voice ringing with power. The words had a well worn feel to them that made it seem like they had been said many times before. “You are not welcome here.”

Its wicked grin grew impossibly wider. It hissed, “ _ I have never been welcome. And yet, here I am. I’ve come to reclaim what was once taken from me. _ ”

The third sleeper brushed its claws gently against the barrier of light around the clearing.

Adam shifted in his stance slightly. He kept clenching and unclenching his fists. “I will stop you.”

It laughed at them, a low creaking sound like nails on a chalkboard. “ _ I don’t think you are powerful enough to stop me. _ ”

The third sleeper struck the barrier of light in a sudden blur of motion, and Adam fell backward. Pushing forward into the light like it was made of thick gelatin, the third sleeper made his way towards the center of the circle. Adam still hadn’t moved, his eyes shut and his body twitching.

“Adam!” Ronan’s voice broke.

At the sound of Ronan’s voice, Adam’s eyes snapped open, blue eyes bright and fierce. He had dirt on his cheek from where he’d fallen. Adam glanced over at Ronan, then tried to stand back up. His limbs shook as if he were lifting a heavy weight. 

He set his jaw. Yelling and shaking, he slowly pushed back against the force of the third sleeper, inch by painful inch. 

Finally, he was standing completely upright in the center of the clearing once more. The light radiating from Adam became more intense, and Ronan had to look away. Adam said to the third sleeper, his voice low and rough, “Looks like you thought wrong, then.”

Streams of light beamed from Adam and wrapped around and around the shadowy figure, mummifying it. It was making a sound like screaming, or else a sound like choking. It shrunk down, compressed by Adam’s power. Adam seemed to be trying to push it into something solid. Adam seemed to be succeeding. The light got bright, brighter than Ronan could handle, and he had to look away.

Finally, the light receded enough that Ronan could open his eyes again. All that remained of the third sleeper was a diamond on the edge of the clearing, its insides smoky and impure.

As Ronan watched, the remaining threads of light receded from the stone. The light around Adam gradually faded, and then disappeared entirely as Ronan faded into darkness.

* * *

 

Ronan fell forward, and he was awake. He tried to sit up, only to find his muscles had cramped. No wonder: he was curled so tightly that he was surprised his body had even deigned to allow him to get in this position to begin with.

Blue and Gansey rushed to his side. Gansey started massaging his tight muscles to help him sit up, and Blue had a handkerchief she was using to brush dirt and tears from Ronan’s face. 

Finally, he was able to sit upright. Adam stood just above where Ronan’s head had been, his eyes distant. As Ronan watched, though, Adam slowly began to refocus on the real world.

Seemingly by unspoken agreement, Gansey and Blue immediately wandered off to the side of the clearing, hand in hand.

Adam came to kneel in front of Ronan. Adam’s eyes scoured over Ronan, checking for visible signs of harm. Despite the almost clinical nature of Adam’s look, Ronan felt his face heat up.

“I’m fine, Adam,” Ronan said. He laid his hand right over Adam’s heart. “I’m fine. Everyone’s fine.”

Adam breathed a soft sigh, and pressed his forehead to Ronan’s, hands resting gently on the sides of Ronan’s face. Ronan kept his hand on Adam’s chest, feeling the pounding of Adam’s heart beneath his palm. Alive. They were both alive.

“I’m so glad you’re safe, Ronan.” Adam’s breath ghosted over Ronan’s lips. “I don’t know what I’d have done if I lost you.”

Ronan slid his hand from Adam’s chest to the back of his neck. He rubbed the side of Adam’s neck gently with his thumb, trying to convey the things he couldn’t say.  _ I need you too. _

The trees around them rustled urgently. Adam leaned back on his heels, moving away from Ronan. He tilted his head as he listened to the trees.

Turning back to Ronan, Adam said, “I have one more thing I have to do.”

Adam helped Ronan stand up and walk over to where Blue and Gansey were talking to each other quietly on the edge of the clearing. They smiled when they saw that Ronan and Adam were okay. Adam left them huddled together under the boughs of an oak tree. Its branches seemed to follow Adam as he turned and walked back into the center of the clearing.

Adam stood unnaturally still, head tilted to the side like he was listening urgently to something. Vines raced from the trees around them and twined around Adam. They pulled at the hem of his jeans as they climbed up his body. They twisted around his torso, down his arms; only his head and neck remained free. Soon, the plants had grown so thickly that Ronan couldn’t see Adam’s shoes through the vines that were still climbing him.

The air around them seemed to ripple, like someone was throwing stones in the pond of reality. Ronan suspected that someone might have been Adam. 

Adam had his eyes lightly shut, but he was lucent. Power gleamed from beneath his skin. It was fainter in the daylight, but Ronan could still see it.

Cabeswater could see it too. The vines drank the power, pulsing faintly with light like a heartbeat. The trees around them seemed to grow taller, stronger, sturdier as they watched.

Through the soles of his feet, Ronan could feel the power moving to the outer reaches of Cabeswater. A tension Ronan hadn’t even been fully aware of drained from the forest as Adam made it stronger. The leaves of the trees sighed in relief, and Ronan felt like sighing too. 

The ripples came with a lessening frequency, as the wave of energy reached the boundary trees of Cabeswater. As Ronan watched, the vines around Adam burst into brilliant bloom, their bright blue flowers scenting the air with a sweet fragrance.

Finally, the magic was complete. The vines peeled off of Adam in thick sheets of greenery, relinquishing their tight hold on him.

Adam stepped out of the vines, and smiled at Ronan, Blue, and Gansey.

The forest was safe once more.

And for now, that was good enough.

**Author's Note:**

> This has been three months in the writing, and based on nightmares I had.
> 
> The ending is probably not super satisfying, but that's okay, I think.  
> I was going for subtlety (both with the plot and the relationships).


End file.
